Becoming superhuman

Week 2: Tactical defeats, strategic victory. Onwards!

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 03:42:00 -0400

I’m the opposite of a certain Stark: I lose all my battles, but I’m still winning the war. I guess that makes me a Lannister.

Physically and mentally week 1 has been full of shit. My very own shit, manufactured by my bad habits and a depressive episode creeping up (fuck that). It’s also been the scene of my very first voluntary full-on cardio session ever - namely today. Which is technically week 2, but as they say in Westeros: Nothing matters but how it ends.

I’ve been jogging up and down 14 floors of stairs for 22 minutes today at a more than healthy pace. At the end my legs were quivering (and had been doing so for the last 8 minutes) and my asthma-ridden lungs were threatening to make good on their earlier promise (around the 14 minute mark, I think) to empty my stomach. Which means I probably did it at a bit high intensity. But you know what? I liked it. I loved it. And I will do it again the day after tomorrow. 3 times a week, to give my lungs and heart a chance to recover between sessions.

Not only did this small victory breach a huge wall in my physical regime, but since I did it first thing in the morning it also means I’m up with plenty of time to spare. So I’m not stressed either. Both physical and mental benefits? A strategic victory indeed.

Tomorrow is my first day of the 100 pushups and 200 situps regime. The baseline has been set, and it’s not high - but we’ll see how this war goes now that I’m rolling again.

Intermediate change of plans: Weekly logs.

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:35:02 -0400

Logging here everyday is not likely. I will log once a week.

Mental log (#1), monday morning.

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:32:00 -0400

Sleep habits:

Status: I’ve overslept. It’s 10:25, and I should have been at school before 9. Luckily I have no classes, but I have tasks to do. I woke by the alarm at 6 and 7, but shut it down again.

Why: Went to bed way too late, and fell asleep even later.

Task: I know I can turn it around if I fast a day and then eat at 6 the next morning. But fasting for a day is always a bit bitchy, and can easily ruin it work-wise. I will try less extreme measures first (go to bed early). That’s my mental fitness task of the day.

Physical log (#1), monday morning.

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:24:00 -0400

I need to track change, so I know it happens. It’s one of the things I learned from the controversial (but well written, to take it for a spin) book the Four Hour Body. I tried his bulking methods (with success) last year - and tracked everything during that process. Went from 65kg to a stable 73kg (183 cm) in two two-week bouts of bulking with negligible fat gain. Since then I’ve tracked the loss down to 69kg again. Still: My stomach is flatter than it was a year ago, my muscles larger and I’m stronger. It’s all in the data.

Today, I added another data point, the first one in months. I’ve been training lightly (martial arts, some sporadic strength training, Convict Conditioning) and the results are that I have grown by a little bit since my last measurement - though everything is still within the realm of statistical error.

While bulking was fun and I’ll be back for more of that, I am in terrible shape cardio-wise and strength-wise. I want something I can do at home that will give me quick, measurable results - and then I can move on from that to something heavier (like starting strength, or back on the bulking from 4hb). So my current goal is to try to run the 100 push up program together with c25k and the 200 sit up program. All of them promise results in 6-9 weeks.

To do that, I need a baseline for all of them - and that’s my physical task for today.

The goal: Becoming superhuman.

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:30:00 -0400

I’m terrible at controlling my habits, my body and my life - and I’m not alone; sleeping in, skipping training and splurging on the budget are all normal human conditions. I set myself goals, and I don’t reach them: I want to start getting up early, but it doesn’t happen. I schedule in painful detail how I’m going to start eating correctly - and it doesn’t happen. This is all perfectly normal, and perfectly human.

I’ve also been through some things that are not normal, but still very much human: I’ve suffered from depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress syndrome. I’ve been close to killing myself. I isolated myself from all my friends for years and lost many of them. I’ve come back from those years with a realization that in my life as a middle class, western man the main limiting factor to my life is myself, and that the fight to control myself is the fight of my life.

The goal is to be in control of my own body and mind. It’s not a new goal, and my path so far has been riddled with failures. It will probably continue to be so. That’s good. Failure means I don’t play it safe.

I have two overarching tasks:

Mastery of physical fitness.
Mastery of mental and social fitness.

This log is personal. It’s about me, and it’s written for me. It’s also public and anonymous. It will reflect the state of mind I think is productive, not necessarily the state of mind I actually have. What I am is not as important as what I am going to be. And I’m going to be superhuman.

In other words, this log is going to be arrogant, full of shit and hopefully full of results. The log will tell.